Engineer downplays role on doomed building

The engineer listed as the designer of the Dallas Cowboys’ indoor training structure, which collapsed, says he actually had little to do with the project.

Enrique Tabak told The Dallas Morning News that he specializes in small farm buildings and only worked for the Canadian company that erected the doomed facility for a short time.

I never went to Texas to see the construction, Tabak told the newspaper.

Tabak was listed as being the engineer in charge when the project was designed and built in 2003. The lightweight facility collapsed in a storm last weekend during a workout by Dallas rookies, injuring 12 people.

The Morning News said Wednesday that Tabak was employed at the time by Summit Structures, but Tabak said he was only there a few months and had been hired to work on small agricultural buildings. Tabak’s name is also isted as the design overseer of a Philadelphia warehouse that collapsed in a snowstorm a few months after it was built in 2003.

The newspaper said official records have thus far been unable to clear up exactly who was responsible for the various aspects of the design and construction of the Dallas team’s facility.